Design is one of three majors in the UCLA Department of Design Media Arts, alongside Computational Art and Games. These three majors offer distinct paths through creative work with digital technologies: Computational Art focuses on computation as a material, method, and subject for artistic practice; Games focuses on games as a creative, technical, and cultural medium; Design focuses on visual communication and graphic design with digital tools.

The UCLA Design major offers a distinctive, expansive approach to contemporary design that integrates visual communication, interaction design, creative technology, critical thinking, and artistic experimentation. Rooted in the fundamentals of design while responding to a rapidly evolving digital landscape, the program bridges graphic design, interface design, environmental design, and publishing. Students learn to work fluidly across physical and digital media, understanding design not simply as problem-solving or commercial production, but as a cultural, social, and artistic practice.

What distinguishes UCLA’s Design major is its expansive definition of design. The program emphasizes both conceptual and technical rigor, encouraging students to move between screen-based systems, physical making, and emerging technologies. Graduates will be prepared to innovate across a broad range of creative industries and experimental contexts.

Design has long been central to the Design Media Arts curriculum, where graphic design, interaction design, digital publishing, creative computation, and experimental media practices have evolved together within an arts-based environment. The Design major formalizes and expands this approach, positioning design as a dynamic field shaped by technological change, artistic experimentation, and critical inquiry.

The Design major for DMA is unique and distinct from existing programs in several ways:

Design from an Expansive Arts Perspective:
This major approaches design as a broad creative and cultural practice that encourages students to experiment across disciplines and media.

Technical, Artistic, and Conceptual Expertise Under One Major:
Grounded equally in technical innovation, formal experimentation, and critical inquiry, students develop fluency in design systems, creative software, prototyping, coding, digital fabrication, and visual communication while engaging deeply with the conceptual and cultural dimensions of design practice.

Design Across Physical and Digital Media:
Unlike programs focused primarily on interfaces or branding, Design students explore interaction design alongside print, installation, objects, fabrication, publishing, animation, and spatial practices, understanding how design operates across environments, platforms, and scales.

Interdisciplinary and Technology-Forward Approach:
The program integrates design with creative coding, media art, animation, AI, electronics, digital fabrication, and contemporary art practices, encouraging students to explore how design intersects with emerging technologies and evolving forms of communication and creative production.

Critical and Cultural Engagement:
Beyond technical skills, the program encourages students to critically examine the social, political, and cultural impact of design. Students are challenged to think about how design shapes systems, identities, public experience, and access within contemporary life.

Together, these commitments prepare graduates to work across rapidly changing creative fields while developing original approaches to design practice in both commercial and experimental contexts.

The Design major begins with a rigorous lower-division course series that establishes technical, conceptual, historical, and formal foundations in contemporary design practice, with some courses shared across all three majors in the Department. Courses introduce students to graphic design, typography, interaction design, digital image-making, motion, creative coding, media and design history and theory, and material processes.

From this foundation, students pursue upper-division studio and theory courses focused on advanced design practices. Electives allow students to deepen their interests in areas such as interface design, branding, motion graphics, publishing, creative technology, fabrication, spatial design, design research, networked media, and experimental art practices. The program culminates in a two-quarter Senior Capstone Project and Senior Exhibition that supports independent research, experimentation, and portfolio development.

Most courses are taught as studios of no more than 20 students, encouraging individual growth, close faculty mentorship, and a strong sense of creative community within the department.

Preparation for the Major Lecture Courses
DESMA 8- Media Histories
DESMA 10- Design Culture

Preparation for the Major Studio Courses (ALL REQUIRED)
DESMA 21- Digital Image
DESMA 22- Fabrication and Materials
DESMA 25- Typography
DESMA 28- Interactivity

Preparation for the Major Studio Courses (1 REQUIRED)
DESMA 24- Video and Motion
OR
DESMA 27- 3D Modeling

Core Lecture Course
DESMA 104- Design Futures

Core Studio Courses (ALL REQUIRED)
DESMA 140-Word and Image
DESMA 141- Web Design and User Experience and Interface
DESMA 142- Design Systems
DESMA 144- Type in Motion
DESMA 145- Design Research
DESMA 150- Professional Practice

Elective Upper Division Courses (CHOOSE 2)
DESMA 101- Media Arts: Introduction
DESMA 107- Game Histories and Analyses
DESMA 110- Tangible Media
DESMA 111- Art and the Internet
DESMA 112- Performing User
DESMA 113- Generative Art
DESMA 114- Arts Research and Practice
DESMA 115- Art and Science Collaboration
DESMA 116- Sonic Media
DESMA 125- Game Design
DESMA 126- Game Engine
DESMA 127- Interactive Animation
DESMA 128- Worldbuilding
DESMA 129- Collaborative Game Lab
DESMA 130- Experiments in Virtuality
DESMA 131- 3D Modeling and Motion
DESMA 143- Disability and the Web
DESMA 146- Ecological Arts and Justice Practice

Senior Project
DESMA 159A- Senior Praxis
DESMA 159B- Senior Capstone Project

Please note that requirements are subject to change prior to the start of the 2027 - 2028 academic year

More information regarding the new Fall 2027 application process will be available soon